Thursday, July 30, 2009

I’m officially throwing my Jack O’Lantern into the race of Halloween bloggers that will be posting ghoulishly good Halloween and monster related items every day in October. This will be my fourth year of insanity and for the first time I’m getting a bloody head start.

You’ll see old mag scans, found photos, illustrated Jacks and the return of the second annual Monster Head Races where you’ll have a chance to win a monster-ly good prize. I’ll even post my amazing skull rock that I found earlier this year! How ‘bout that?

Of course I can’t contain all this horrible goodness on one blog. You’ll need to visit the spookiest street in Neato Coolville, Weird Hollow for more crazy creeps. There you’ll find my pals Vlad and Scary Larry on KRYP-TV and I’ll show more items from Saint Bloodworth’s Museum of the Odd.

As I prepare for the big month, posts might be a little scarce until October, so hang in there Neato Readers as I hope this will be the best Halloween Countdown yet!

I leave you with one of Vlad’s video moments. Let’s just say we had some problems with this one. (Between you and me it’s really a waste of time. Really, I’d skip watching the video!)

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Most Sundays I try to post a vintage found snapshot or slide. This time I’m posting a few slides that my Uncle snapped during the live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Years before homes had VCRs or DVRs the only way to preserve something from television was to take a photo of the screen.

My good Uncle took five photos. The first is with the flash and it wiped out the screen’s image. (Glad he did use the flash or we would've missed out seeing that nifty portable TV set.)

The next four slides are of the historical moment. The screen shots are kind of dark, but I did my best to try and bring them out of the darkness a bit. Actually, I like the extra static!

This last photo is the same as the first slide, but through the magic of photoshop I’ve inserted one of his screen shots onto the TV screen. Now I can see exactly how it looked when my Uncle witnessed history forty years ago.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

I just heard that Walter Cronkite passed away. Growing up - we always watched the CBS Evening News with Cronkite during supper. For a kid I didn’t have much interest in the news but I sure enjoyed listening to Cronkite’s calming voice and he reminded me of another Walter that was also from Missouri.

I guess it’s fitting that Walter Cronkite left this earth as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. Godspeed Walter Cronkite.

Friday, July 17, 2009

I finally picked up Forry Ackerman's 1965 Spacemen Yearbook with the out-of-this-world cover by artists Wally Wood and Russ Jones. Also, in the stack was a silly 1963 Cartoon & Gag magazine. I purchased it for the cartoon on the back cover - the one below.

Maybe the boys of Apollo 11 dreamed they would find some sexy space women on the moon. Of course we all know sexy space women only live on Mars.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

I’ve owned this amazing ambrotype for at least five years and it once belonged to a close friend. She had it for more than twenty years and she purchased the photo at a small antique show in Springfield, Missouri.

On Sundays I usually like to post old snapshots from the 20th Century, but I looked thru most of my snapshot collection and didn’t see any patriotic or 4th of July images. Ah yes, my Union Flag Bearer will be perfect for today’s post!

Too bad he didn’t come with identification. Like most of my photos in my collection, I wonder who the people were. Who was this brave soldier? I wonder if he survived the Civil War? Questions I’ll never know.